from the so.-much.-hay. dept

The information from the American foreign intelligence agency, acquired by former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, show that the spying is conducted by a branch called "Follow the Money" (FTM). The collected information then flows into the NSA's own financial databank, called "Tracfin," which in 2011 contained 180 million records. Some 84 percent of the data is from credit card transactions.

On one hand, what the NSA is doing is exactly what the NSA should be doing: tracing the money flow of terrorist organizations.

Their aim was to gain access to transactions by VISA customers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, according to one presentation. The goal was to "collect, parse and ingest transactional data for priority credit card associations, focusing on priority geographic regions."

This is part of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which was set up shortly after the 9/11 attacks and gave the US government access to the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) database. This, in and of itself, is not news, having been exposed in 2006. Documents uncovered then showed the program had been in place since 2002, with permission extended to the CIA and the Treasury Dept. as part of Bush's "Global War on Terror."

What is new, however, is the fact that the NSA is targeting transactions from major credit card companies, like VISA. This has quite a bit more potential for misuse than SWIFT, which records only banking transactions. VISA responded to this new information with the same quasi-denial we've seen from several other companies whose links to the NSA have been exposed.

"We are not aware of any unauthorized access to our network. Visa takes data security seriously and, in response to any attempted intrusion, we would pursue all available remedies to the fullest extent of the law. Further, its Visa's policy to only provide transaction information in response to a subpoena or other valid legal